CHARLESTON. 





PHILADEIiPHI A : 

IPPINCOTT COMPANY. 

1889. 



/ 



^ 273 
. C4 G83 
-opv 1 



CHARLESTON. 



^. 



X. 






PHILADELPHIA : 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 

1889. 



Vail 



Copyright, 1889, by J. B. Lippincott Company. 



I ISTEREOTYPEB'So^DPR'.rjTCRSl ll 



CHARLESTON. 



Charleston, a port of entry, capital of a county of 
its own name, and the largest city of South Carolina, 
is situated on a tongue of land between the rivers 
Ashley and Cooper, which unite immediately below 
the town and form a beautiful and spacious harbour, 
communicating with the ocean at Sullivan's Island, 
a popular sea-bathing resort, 7 miles below. It is 115 
miles NE. of Savannah, 580 miles SW. of Baltimore, 
and 540 miles SSW. of Washington. The ground on 
which the city is built is elevated 8 or 9 feet above the 
level of the harbour at high tide, which rises about 6 
feet, flowing by the city with a strong current, thus 
contributing to its salubrity. It has a water front of 
9 miles. A shifting sandbar extends across the mouth 
of the harbour, affording, however, two entrances, of 
which the deepest, near Sullivan's Island, has 16 feet 
of water at low tide. Jetties, which are expected to 
give a depth of 25 feet of water on the bar, have since 
1878 been under construction by the national govern- 
ment. The harbour is defended by Castle Pinckney 
and Fort Sumter, each on an island, the former 2 and 
the latter 6 miles below the city, and also by Fort 
Moultrie, on Sullivan's Island. Forts Ripley and John- 
son, now abandoned, have only an historic interest. 



4 CHARLESTON. 

At the entrance of the harbour is a lighthouse, with a 
flashing light, 125 feet high. 

Charleston is regularly built, and extends about 3 
miles in length and nearly ij^ miles in breadth. It 
has a copious water-supply from a large artesian well 
(1970 feet in depth). The streets, many of which are 
broad and bordered with shade-trees, pass, for the 
most part, parallel to one another, from the Cooper 
to the Ashley River, and are intersected by others 
nearly at right angles. Many of the houses are of 
brick, some of them of superior elegance ; others are 
of wood, neatly painted, and embowered during the 
summer season amid a profusion of foliage. Among 
the public buildings are the custom-house, the city 
hall, the court-house, the citadel, the academy of music, 
the theatre, the orphan asylum, and the police bar- 
racks. The custom-house is a handsome edifice, built 
of granite and white marble. At the southern ex- 
tremity of the city is a small park called the Battery 
or White Point Garden, with a fine promenade on the 
sea-wall. The most important educational and literary 
institutions are the Charleston College (non-sectarian), 
which was founded in 1785 and reorganised in 1837; 
the Medical College of South Carolina (1833); the 
State Military Academy, also called the Citadel ; the 
high school ; the female seminary ; a normal school for 
girls ; and the Charleston Library ( 1 748). The Charles- 
ton College has an excellent museum of natural his- 
tory. There are good public, private, and parochial 
schools for white and coloured children. Charleston is 
the seat of an Episcopal and a Roman Catholic bishop 
and contains forty churches. St. Michael's Church 



CHARLESTON. C 

(Episcopal) is a brick structure, with a steeple i8o feet 
high, and a chime of bells imported from England in 
1764. Among the benevolent institutions are the city- 
hospital, the Confederate Home for Widows, the alms- 
house, the asylum for the aged and infirm, and the 
orphan asylum, which is liberally endowed, and can 
accommodate three hundred children. There are also 
Catholic orphan asylums and a convent. 

Charleston is the chief commercial city of South 
Carolina, and has an advantageous position for trade. 
Steamships ply regularly between this port and New 
York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Florida ; and three 
railroads meet here, with a large wharf frontage, ele- 
vators, and every facility for through shipments and 
the quick despatch of freight. The coastwise trade 
far exceeds the foreign in extent and importance. The 
chief articles of export are cotton, rice, naval stores 
(rosin, oil of turpentine, tar, &c.), cotton goods, timber, 
market-garden produce, phosphate rock, and crude 
and manufactured fertilisers ; the value of the principal 
exports in 1887 was ^6,111,672. The imports, chiefly 
salt, iron, ties, ale, brimstone, kainite, and fruits from 
the West Indies, were returned at i^i 1 1 ,'j'j i . There is 
a large wholesale distributing trade in dry-goods, cloth- 
ing, drugs, &c. ; and the city has large machine-shops, 
cotton-presses, grist-mills, cotton-mills, rice-mills, a 
bagging-factory, ship-yards, a good dry-dock for large 
ships, and extensive manufactures of phosphate of 
lime, which abounds in the vicinity. Whereas only 6 
tons of phosphate were mined in 1867, 285,000 tons 
were raised in 1887. 

The city was founded in 1680; a few years later a 



5 CHARLESTON. 

company of French Huguenots, exiled for their re- 
ligion, settled at this place. On the 28th June 1776 a 
British squadron attacked the garrison on Sullivan's 
Island, consisting of 400 men under Colonel Moultrie, 
who defended the place with success. Charleston was 
afterwards besieged by Sir Henry Clinton from April 
I, 1780, to May 12, when it was surrendered by Gen- 
eral Lincoln. On the 12th of April i86i,the Confed- 
erates initiated the civil war by the bombardment of 
Fort Sumter, which they took the next day. In 1861 
about half the city was destroyed by fire, and a consid- 
erable part was not rebuilt until after 1865. In April 
1863 a Federal fleet of nine ironclad vessels, com- 
manded by Admiral Dupont, attacked the fortifica- 
tions of Charleston without success. After a long 
siege the place was evacuated by the Confederates, 
February 17, 1865. On 31st August 1886 the city was 
visited by a severe earthquake ; nearly 7000 buildings 
were either destroyed or seriously injured, and sev- 
eral lives were lost. The earthquake was followed by 
a very general reconstruction of the business part of 
the city. Pop. (1800) 18,711; (1820) 24,780; (1840) 
29,261 ; (i860) 40,522; (1870)48,956, of whom 22,749 
were white and 26,207 were coloured; (1880) 49,984; 
(1887) 62,357 (27,543 white, 34,814 coloured). 



LlBRflRY OF CONGRP<:<: 

!■■ 

w 014 498 039 6 m 



n 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

Ill 



014 498 039 6 f 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 498 039 6 ^» 



